Fruit

Fruit Salad with Honey Lime Poppy Seed Dressing: apples, grapes, pomegranate tossed in a super flavorful honey-lime dressing with poppy seeds! This salad is so pretty - it will make a great appetizer, side dish, or a dish you could bring as party food to a family gathering! It's a great salad to make in the […]
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Spinach Salad with Fruit and Maple-Lime Dressing - refreshing, healthy salad with lots of color and winter fruit! A delicious way to get some nutrients during the cold winter months! This recipe couldn't get any easier than this: chop everything up, combine in a bowl, add the dressing and the salad is ready! If you […]
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Creamy Vanilla Grape & Apple Salad with Cranberries and Pecans - this salad is so good, you will want it before dinner, as an appetizer, and after dinner, as a dessert! With the holidays coming up, this festive fruit salad will look great on the Thanksgiving and/or Christmas menu! The dressing is made by […]
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Butternut Squash & Spinach Salad with Pecans, Cranberries, Pomegranate with Poppy Seed Honey-Lime Dressing - a great choice for Thanksgiving or any other winter holiday menu! This is a perfect Autumn or Winter salad , since it uses lots of seasonal ingredients that are available this time of the year. Healthy, gluten free, packed with […]
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Cranberry Pecan Chicken Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing - this is really one of the best chicken salads you'll ever taste! The homemade, easy-to-make poppy seed dressing makes this salad quite special. Give yourself and your family a treat - scroll down to the recipe and make this salad! Not only is this salad great […]
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Butternut Squash, Kale, Pecan, Cranberry, Apple Salad with Maple-Lime Dressing - this healthy, gluten free salad combines lots of Autumn flavors and is a great side dish / appetizer during the Fall/Winter season! Maple-Lime dressing is perfect for kale: it softens and balances its flavor. I really enjoyed this salad, and so did my husband […]
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Winter Fruit Salad with Maple-Lime Dressing - healthy, gluten free salad that utilizes seasonal winter fruit. Great for every day, to fill you up with nutrients and vitamins during the cold winter months. It will also make a great holiday menu item, for Thanksgiving or Christmas or any other holiday during the Autumn and Winter seasons. […]
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Maple Butternut Squash, Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Pumpkin Seeds, and Cranberries - perfect Autumn salad, bursting with colors and flavors! I love this recipe so much - to me it looks so much like Autumn on a plate. Last year, I made a very similar recipe but with pecans, this year my tastes have changed a […]
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Broccoli Salad with Pecans, Cranberries, Raisins, and Bacon - healthy, DELICIOUS, gluten free salad, packed with fiber! One of my most favorite salads! If you love nuts and dried fruit - this is a great recipe for you! I like to rehydrate dried cranberries and raisins in boiled water so that they are plumper and […]
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Disclosure: Nordic Ware sent me the free product (Nordic Ware Non-Stick Cast Aluminum Fleur De Lis Bundt Pan) to try out - I love my new bundt pan and will be describing my experience with this pan in this post. I was not compensated for this post other than receiving the bundt pan for free! All opinions are […]
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Apple Cranberry Spinach Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette - healthy, delicious, easy-to-make salad! Perfect for the Thanksgiving menu, this is one looking holiday salad. With lots of good for you ingredients, this recipe is packed with fiber, and it's gluten free! While this salad is especially great for the holidays, such as Thanksgiving or Christmas, it has […]
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Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Cinnamon Butternut Squash, Pecans, and Cranberries - this easy Thanksgiving side dish is not only delicious and bursting with Fall and Holiday flavors (cinnamon, maple syrup), it's also healthy, gluten free, vegetarian, and packed with fiber! I love the combination of ingredients here! Even if you don't like Brussels sprouts, you'll love […]
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Peach Coffee Cake with Vanilla Glaze - light and fluffy Greek yogurt cake baked with lots of peaches on top (mixed with brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg), and topped with creamy vanilla glaze. One of the best peach coffee cakes you'll ever taste! Pour the vanilla glaze over the still warm cake for best results […]
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Peach Cream Cheese Cake made in a springform pan - the light and fluffy cake (made with Greek yogurt), creamy cheesecake filling, delicious peaches, and a crunchy streusel topping! I love baking with Greek yogurt and avoiding using as much butter as I can get away with. There isn't too much butter in this cake, yet […]
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Pork Tenderloin with Sweet Balsamic Plum Reduction. Only 6 ingredients! The sticky glaze is so flavorful, you'll want to double the recipe just for the plum sauce! This is one of the best recipes to make pork. Very easy to make, the preparation time is minimum. And, it's a delicious way to use some plums! […]
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Addictive Red Sangria with Mixed Berries - a light and fruity cocktail drink for the Summer pool parties and cook-outs! Lots of flavors: Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, oranges, and lemon. A crowd-pleasing cocktail - it's so easy to make, just through all the ingredients together (except for carbonated liquid which you will add when serving) and […]
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Oven roasted pork tenderloin, with apples and plums. The fruit perfectly complements the flavors of generously seasoned pork. Pork comes out juicy and moist every time! Super easy dinner recipe that you can make any day of the week! It's also gluten free! If you ever wondered what you could do with those plums you […]
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Blackberry tart made completely from scratch, in a homemade tart crust! Topped with toasted slivered almonds. So good! Delicious dessert for the Summer, and a great way to use up all those blackberries you might have bought on a whim! The homemade tart shell is so easy to make (don't let the word "homemade tart […]
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This Apple Cranberry Spinach Salad with Pecans, Avocados (and Marzetti® Simply Dressed® Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing) is so good, you might as well double the recipe when you're making it! The recipe is filled with so much flavor, that I'm having a hard time finding the right words to describe it but I will try. :) Let's […]
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Today's recipe is an amazing Pumpkin Apple Spice Bundt Cake: flavorful, moist, light and fluffy! It’s everything you will want in a holiday cake! Perfect for Christmas, Thanksgiving, all year around, really! By the way, today I’m guest posting over at Oh Sweet Basil - a wonderful blog that you will love to follow! Please […]
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Peach and Blueberry Greek Yogurt Cake made in a springform pan - you couldn't find an easier recipe for such a colorful, beautiful cake! I love baking with Greek yogurt and avoiding using as much butter as I can get away with. In this recipe, you'll be using 1/2 stick of softened butter and 1/2 […]
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I love blueberries and banana bread. For years, I've been making this regular banana bread with blueberries with wheat flour, and I've been missing it terribly ever since I unexpectedly became gluten intolerant in the last several months and couldn't eat any regular baked desserts. Well, no more missing or crying over my blueberry banana […]
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I am so excited about this recipe! As I am slowly eating a second slice of this gluten free cake, I still can't believe that it tastes just like regular, everyday gluten/wheat based cake. So good! I am so happy about this cake: the flavor, the texture, the softness! And, because I am the only […]
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Blueberry vanilla bread with lemon glaze. This delicious bread is stuffed with blueberries, and deliciously flavored with vanilla and lemon zest. The glaze is made from freshly squeezed lemon juice and powdered sugar. There is just enough glaze to cover the top of the bread with a drizzle and not to overwhelm the overall flavor […]
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Strawberry banana bread muffins - I made these recently because I had too many strawberries and needed a delicious and easy recipe to use them up. I reincarnated my favorite, time-tested banana bread recipe to make it into muffins, and it worked perfectly! They came out delicious. A favorite family breakfast! For 12 muffins I […]
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Delicious blueberry Greek yogurt cake made in a springform baking pan. I love using Greek yogurt in baking, as it gives a richer texture to the cake batter. You can use either a 9x3 springform pan (like I did) or a 9 inch round cake pan. The cake comes out just of the right height […]
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Simple and delicious salad that has a perfect combination of savory and sweet: strawberry spinach salad with bacon, feta cheese, and toasted almonds in a simple homemade balsamic vinaigrette. Spinach and strawberries pair perfectly with a sweet balsamic vinegar dressing, made with only 3 ingredients: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and brown sugar. I like to […]
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Healthy quinoa with vegetables: spinach, mushrooms, green onions, red bell pepper, and fresh peach (which adds a nice touch of freshness and sweetness!). This recipe is actually a variation of a quinoa dish I made (and really liked) several days ago. This recipe works well as a side dish or as an easy quinoa salad. […]
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Broccoli salad with strawberries, blueberries, mango, apples, and bacon - with a homemade mayonnaise and sour cream based salad dressing. Deliciousness! Lots of healthy ingredients! This salad is crunchy, sweet and savory at the same time! Love the colors and the freshness of the ingredients. It's great for picnics, potlucks, and cook-outs! An added bonus […]
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Crepes filled with strawberries, bananas, and peanut butter. Delicious, filling, and low carb! I used crunchy peanut butter, which goes great with crepes! These are wonderful for breakfast, snack, or dessert! I have a very good post about how to make crepes from scratch in a regular frying pan, which explains in detail (including step-by-step […]
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Here is another delicious Summer salad: Quinoa salad with spinach, strawberries, blueberries, peaches, mandarin oranges in a homemade Balsamic vinaigrette dressing. The dressing is made from scratch, using olive oil, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, mustard powder, onion and garlic powders. It's not a heavy dressing: it's very light and perfect for this kind of salad […]
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Starting this Sunday, I am setting a little personal challenge for myself - to post a new crepe recipe every Sunday, for the next 2 months. Hopefully, each Sunday morning, if my challenge keeps up, I will have a new crepe recipe up on my site. And, to kick off this personal challenge, today I […]
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Chocolate chips and strawberry shortcakes go together amazingly well, as I discovered with this recipe! Chocolate adds just the right amount of sweetness to the biscuits, which have a delicious crunch on the outside while being soft inside. These shortcakes are so good, I almost ate 2 of them right out of the oven, without […]
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It is mid-June, and it means it's time for Sangria cocktails! White sangria is a lighter and fruitier drink than red sangria, and, therefore, it is perfect for sipping at the pool, sharing it with friends at cook-outs, pool parties, etc. I love to add apples to sangria - they add wonderful flavor to the […]
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If you want to turn a simple coffee cake into something more colorful and Summer-ish, this recipe is perfect for you! This is the best coffee cake for the Summer: with generous amounts of blueberries, apples, and peaches - all together in one cake! The top of the cake is richly covered with crunchy cinnamon […]
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Introducing my new favorite summer salad: Strawberry Spinach Salad, with Blueberries, Mango, Avocado, and Cashew nuts, with a Balsamic Vinaigrette salad dressing. This salad has become a new favorite in my family, and we make it all the time. This salad is colorful and refreshing like summer itself, and the dressing is super delicious! I […]
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I once had way too many fresh blackberries (and they were not even that sweet), and this blackberry tart was a perfect recipe to use them all to bring out the best in berries! The tart turned great, with fresh berries bursting in color and flavor in all of their glory, and with the lemon […]
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I make banana bread or banana bread muffins quite often, primarily because it's an easy extra snack I can take to work with me. It's quite nice to open my lunch box around 1 or 2pm and find a slice of banana bread or a muffin there, in addition to the actual lunch. Makes my […]
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Do you like peaches and cream? What about peaches and ice-cream? Or even better, a peach cobbler with chocolate chip ice-cream? Unbelievably delicious and easy to make. With the peach season knocking at our doors, I felt compelled to post this amazing recipe for my most favorite peach cobbler! It's a perfect Spring and Summer […]
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Banana whoopie pies with fluffy peanut butter frosting is one of those delicious desserts that everybody likes! I love baking with bananas, and these whoopie pies are no exception: they are so good on their own, you could eat them without any frosting. But, of course, adding the peanut butter frosting doesn't hurt and makes […]
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I made this chocolate pear cake quite a while ago and really liked it, even though never before have I combined chocolate cake batter and pears. As I luckily discovered, pears and chocolate cake work really well together in this easy-to-prepare, everyday cake. Especially if you have a couple of very ripe pears that you […]
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This is a very basic everyday cake I've been making a lot lately. Just a good simple apple crumb coffee cake. I drizzle it with the caramel sauce (or dulce de leche), but it doesn't have to be - it's good on its own. And, I want to clarify right away: there is no coffee […]
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Low-fat, whole wheat banana bread muffins with apples and pecans The Holidays are over, and I am having a little bit of a hard time getting back into my routines. You see, I am a person of habit, and when my daily habits get temporarily broken even by such joyful events as the Holidays , […]
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Some of my friends are not too much into sweets or cookies, so lately, since I've been on a Holiday cookie baking craze, I've started receiving threats complaints from them to stop posting pictures of cookies and requests to finally post something more meaty. Well, what could be more meaty than a hamburger? Especially, a […]
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Low fat banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies - a Holiday version, with sprinkles! :) These have been my favorite oatmeal cookies this year! I like them to be on the chewy side (vs. cakey), and this recipe fits the bill, thanks to the old-fashioned (or rolled) oats, bananas, and Greek yogurt! Only 2 tablespoons of […]
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What do you do when you have too many apples? You make breakfast pumpkin pancakes with spiced apple topping, of course! If you thought that pancakes were great with the caramel sauce drizzled all over them, wait until you try them with cinnamon and nutmeg spiced apples - so delicious! To make the topping, I […]
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Am I the only one who is having a hard time getting back into the kitchen after a week of Thanksgiving feasting? I've been eating so much over the last 10 days, I am not even hungry any more. So, please forgive me for this very basic cooked apples recipe today. So simple and easy […]
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You will fall in love with this apple pumpkin bundt cake and will be making it over and over again! The cake is so moist and fluffy, so very flavorful - it's like having Autumn on your plate! It will make a great addition to your dessert menu for Thanksgiving as an alternative or a […]
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An easy apple cake doesn't get any better than this! Tasty and moist, with great texture and flavor, packed with juicy apple slices, this is a perfect every day cake! It has become a regular in my rotation of Fall desserts! So easy to make: it takes literally 15 minutes to prepare, not counting the […]
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My obsession with pumpkin and very ripe bananas continues. This time, I decided to add chocolate chips to the mix. If you enjoy banana bread with chocolate chips, you'll LOVE these pumpkin chocolate chip muffins! These muffins are so moist and light in texture, I am tempted to call them cupcakes, except there is no […]
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The apple saga continues: there's just been way too many apples around my house lately. I've been trying to put them to good use by making apple muffins and apple pumpkin breads, baking apple cobblers and apple crisps. I even started eating an apple a day. And, yet, I don't seem to make a dent […]
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Are you enjoying the pumpkin season? I certainly am! I never thought I would enjoy pumpkin muffins so much until I made these. And you will want to make them too once you read what they are made out of. Please meet pumpkin banana muffins made with Greek yogurt, chopped apples, cinnamon, and, not least […]
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This is my new favorite banana bread recipe. And, as you can see, it's not just a regular banana bread. It's a PUMPKIN banana bread stuffed with apple chunks, flavored with cinnamon and vanilla, and baked to perfection, with a gorgeous top crust! This recipe combines so many of my favorite things: bananas, pumpkin, apples, […]
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I am so happy with this recipe! It's definitely a winner! I really wanted to bake something that involved apples, cinnamon, pecans (it's Fall after all!), very ripe bananas, and muffins. I really wanted a muffin that tasted and looked like it belonged in the Fall season. So, after I was done baking these apple […]
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This is my second apple recipe in a row! If only I could post apple desserts every day from now on until the Fall is over .... Maybe, someday... For now I have a day job I need to attend to - which sort of prevents me from publishing posts about apples every day. :) […]
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The Fall is here! It makes me very happy: I love rain, thunderstorms, the sound of lightning, leaves turning yellow, and, of course, Fall harvest foods. And, what better way to celebrate the first days of Fall than to cook something yummy with apples! I love crepes (A LOT), and I just knew I couldn't […]
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I am very particular about oatmeal cookies. I only like them if they have a really chewy texture; and I am not too fond of cakey oatmeal cookies. Luckily, I found a great recipe that, with some of my changes, delivered exactly what I was looking for! Not only did I get my thick and […]
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Have you ever been obsessed over a recipe? Do you have a favorite food you really liked when you were a child, only to never really taste anything like that in adulthood? You might think I am talking about some rare food or unusual recipe, but I am really only talking about pancakes. Pancakes are […]
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Last summer I got really hooked into making all types of tarts and tartlets, and I have unfortunately completely neglected my beautiful Williams-Sonoma tart and tartlet pans since then. But I can't let the summer go by without posting at least one tart recipe. And, of course, because it's summer, it should be a recipe […]
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My most favorite Summer desserts are always baked with berries or fruit, such as this bundt cake, these delicious mixed berry muffins, or this easy apple-plum tart. Then, there is another category of desserts where no baking is required and where you can create an endless number of combinations, - I am talking about crepes […]
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What is your perfect summer dessert? What screams "Summer!" louder than a bundt cake stuffed with all sorts of berries (my favorite dessert from last summer)? Yes, I've made that bundt cake many times last summer, but this year I have a new favorite: mixed berry yogurt muffins! Made with Greek yogurt and 3 types […]
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Apple pie has always been one of my most favorite desserts, and I am also addicted to crepes. As I was brainstorming the other day about what kind of new filling I should try for the stack of crepes I always seem to have somewhere nearby (perhaps, because I love making them from scratch), I […]
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I've been making a lot of tropical fruit salsa lately. You could say I am on a tropical fruit salsa kick. Fruits and veggies mixed with the lime juice and spices are so good, and there are so many possible variations - I can eat it with anything! The salsa goes especially well with seafood: […]
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Yes, I have a lot of fresh pineapple at my disposal right now. This is the second time this week I am making a recipe using pineapple - and I don't mind it in the least! I love fresh pineapple!!! I could snack on plain pineapple all day long, but I also like to use […]
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Right now, April-May, is the best time to buy fresh mangoes and pineapple - a self-imposed mission my husband has successfully accomplished for the past 3 weeks. I now always have a fresh pineapple (or two, or even three!) on my counter, and a couple of mangoes sitting in the refrigerator or ripening quietly in […]
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Whenever I make banana bread, it's usually because I have overly ripe bananas that are about to rot but I don't want to waste them. You should've seen these 3 bananas that went into this bread: they were black and already mushy inside their banana casing. My mother-in-law cringed when she once saw me save […]
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Two very ripe bananas and one package of blueberries were sitting on my counter, so naturally I had to make a banana bread with blueberries. I wanted something different from the banana bread recipe I used a couple of weeks ago, so in addition to blueberries, I also added Greek yogurt. Well, adding the Greek […]
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The main reason I wanted to make this baked French dessert was that I liked how it sounded - clafoutis. Doesn't it sound very French and sophisticated and refined? Plus, as you can judge from the name, the berry clafoutis is filled with berries (and I love sweets with berries), and it is different from […]
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This is simply the best recipe I've found so far for the most moist, perfectly sweetened, and easy banana bread. I added walnuts to this recipe, but they are totally optional, even though I love my banana bread with walnuts. This recipe is so easy, you don't even need a mixer - just mix everything […]
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Apple tarte tatin, or simply caramel apple tart, with strawberries - making this dessert with a very French name has long been on my to-do list, ever since I saw this recipe on Orangette and Smitten Kitchen. I became even more inclined to make this apple tarte tatin after reading that Molly of Orangette had […]
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When I saw this recipe for apple cinnamon pancakes in one of the earlier posts on Smitten Kitchen, I immediately knew that I will be including them into my weekend breakfast recipe repertoire. Regular plain pancakes always seem, well, too plain. Pancakes filled with shredded apples? That's my kind of pancake - not too plain! […]
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Valentine's Day was yesterday, and I have not had a real dessert in a whole week. Not that I am a dessert-freak that cannot go a week without something sweet, but no dessert even on Valentine's Day? Am I the only one without Valentine's dessert this year? I am feeling guilty in relation to the […]
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While I think pear and prosciutto go together so well as an appetizer that you don't really need to add anything else, in this recipe I did add pomegranate seeds and spinach to create an actual salad. This salad could be served before dinner; it could be one of the appetizers on your table; or […]
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I crave no fancy cookies for Christmas - just give me a simple shortbread cookie and I'll be happy. It's all about simple cookies that taste good and bring back the childhood memories. I started last week with simple almond shortbread cookies, and these Christmas cranberry noels from Martha Stewart are also simple to make […]
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I love pomegranate seeds and eat them pretty much as is, as a mid-day snack, but I also started looking for good recipes that call for actual pomegranate seeds. I just found and tested this one from Epicurious.com, and it is a keeper! Everybody who tried this salad so far has been in awe. And […]
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I don't want to post any "heavy" recipes today, the day after Thanksgiving. Yesterday, I've eaten so much of cornish game hens and blueberry pie, I am not even hungry today at 5:00pm. All I want to eat today is something light and not very rich to detox myself after yesterday's feast. For instance, this […]
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I haven't posted a single Thanksgiving-related recipe this season, and what am I posting the night before the Thanksgiving Day? Not a recipe for stuffing, pie, pumpkin soup or potato gratin. No. I am posting a mere salad recipe. A Thanksgiving salad recipe. Who eats salads on Thanksgiving, you might ask? Truth be told, I've […]
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Once again, my husband has purchased bananas to eat along with his work-out routine, and once again he's been forgetting to eat them. Predictably, I was once again left with 3 overly ripe bananas on my hands and one more dilemma in my head. I couldn't make banana bread because I don't have a bread […]
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OK, after my blog post yesterday on how to make crepes, I can't wait to share one of my most favorite ways to serve them. So here it goes. I want to warn you right away, this post has some of my worst photography, and the resulting crepes with ricotta cheese look much more appetizing […]
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Want a warm and cozy Fall dessert? Then look no further than this apple and cinnamon coffee cake recipe (made with buttermilk or kefir) that I recently discovered on Martha Stewart's site. This easy-to-make recipe makes abundant use of Fall's fresh sweet (and tart) fruits and flavors, without overwhelming them with too many other flavors. […]
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Finally, here is my final recipe in the Halloween recipe series: cinnamon apple pockets, made out of puff pastry, made to look like wizard hats. I hope they do look like wizard hats. To me they do look like wizard hats, but it might be my wishful thinking because I've been staring at them for […]
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Ever since Halloween cooking craze started, I've been seeing a lot of mummy themed foods, usually hot dogs wrapped in mummy-like pastry. Well, I wanted to wrap puff pastry around something other than a hot dog, so I thought why not make mummy apples and pears? Eating apple and pear mummy treats is like eating […]
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Once upon a time, the pumpkin pie got infested with little chocolate bugs, spiders, and worms. Some of these creatures have eyes and are staring right back at you from the tart. But, thankfully, there are three magic wizard hats (with cinnamon apple filling) to save the harvest. It's a battle: the bugs have managed […]
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This is that puff pastry dessert I was talking about earlier this week, when I got carried away baking puff pastry goodies for Weekend Cook and Tell Event at SeriousEats.com. Just like anything with puff pastry, this recipe is very easy: just peel, slice, assemble and bake. Plum and apple tart that you see on […]
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Kompot is a cold non-alcoholic drink, made with fruit cooked in large quantities of water. It has its origins in Eastern Europe, and it's very popular in Russia. I know it's not summer any more in most of the country, but it is still summer here in Arizona. 100 F was average temperature this week, […]
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I discovered this triple berry buttermilk bundt cake recipe on one of my most favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen. When Deb published that blog post, I found myself coming back to her site even more often, just to look at her pictures of this bundt cake full of blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries, and not being […]
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This recipe uses slow cooker, which always minimizes the mess in the kitchen and for that, I love my slow cooker. This is one of the easiest recipes ever and also one of the best whole chicken dishes I have had in my life. What makes this chicken recipe so special is that when chicken, […]
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I want to warn you right away - this is a very rich dessert! Not surprisingly why - goat cheese whipped together with heavy cream and sugar! I think plums are way overlooked and underused as ingredient. So, to rectify this situation, I made a plum tart dessert. I love plums as a fruit that's […]
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